Mar 17, 2021
Mapping Soil Types in a Fifteenth-Century Egyptian Cadastral Survey
- 11:00 to 12:15
- Lecture
- Dept. III
- Muhammad Shaaban
Cadastral records that documented the economic foundation of the Mamluk state (1250-1517) have rarely survived. However, two works from that period collated registers that were kept by officials in the Army Bureau (dīwān al-jaysh). The most complete was compiled by Yaḥya Ibn al-Jīʿān (d. 1480), a Mamluk administrative official in the Army Bureau from a family of administrative officials, in his Kitāb al-Tuḥfah al-Sanīyah bi-Asmāʼ al-Bilād al-Miṣrīyah. Although the importance of this manuscript has been recognized by scholars since the eighteenth century, much of its contents have yet to be fully explored. One such aspect of these records is the inclusion of soil classifications used for taxation purposes. This paper will present land and soil data related to Upper Egypt during the Mamlūk period and the questions it presents to modern scholars.
Contact and Registration
Everyone is welcome to attend, please register by sending an email to Aleksandar Shopov.